While it's hard to believe, we're already a quarter of the way through 2016.
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If one of your goals is to update your business's website design this year, you better get to it! Here is a quick look at some of the most effective ways to optimize your website's design in 2016:

1. Responsive Website Design
We've talked quite a lot about the various ways that you can make your website mobile friendly, but it seems that Google's preferred format is responsive website design.

With responsive website design, the website is fluid and automatically adapts to the size of the screen no matter what type of device visitors are using to access your website. This allows your website visitors to have the same viewing and user experience, whether they are visiting your website from a desktop computer or a smartphone.

Considering the growth in the number of people that now access websites from mobile devices, we are finding that the majority of new websites are using responsive design.

2. Rich Animations
If there's one thing for certain, it's that businesses are trying to find creative ways to make their websites more interactive in 2016. One way that this is accomplish is through using rich animations to enhance the website's storytelling.

There are 2 types of animations that businesses are using: large scale animations (parallax scrolling and pop-up notifications) and small scale animations (hover tools and loading bars).

While the use of rich animations can really benefit your website design, just be careful that it doesn't slow down your load speed.

3. Material Design
While flat design has been all the rage in the past, material design is now emerging since Google introduced material design in 2015. Material design allows business to create more realistic website designs by taking advantage of shadow effects and concepts of movement and depth.

4. Micro Interactions
You've likely already completed a number of micro interactions today, such as turning off the alarm on your smartphone or liking a post on Facebook. Micro interactions are extremely brief and are done without a second thought. With a micro interaction, you are engaging with a user interface for a single moment.

Most web design projects involve micro interactions today. The goal is to make each interaction more human-like. You'll want to keep these interactions simple and almost invisible.

5. Minimalist Design
The goal of minimalist design is to eliminate any unnecessary elements or content that would distract or take away from the user experience. Minimalist websites typically have limited color schemes, few UI elements, and embrace the use of negative space.

While we mentioned earlier the growing demand for websites that feature material design, flat design is not going anywhere as it works particularly well when paired with minimalist design.
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With so many websites on the internet to compete with, you owe it to your business to optimize your website to provide the best user experience. Take advantage of these 5 website design trends to attract more traffic, keep visitors on your website, and boost conversions.